(Deprecated) The Core of Software Engineering Management

This post on my “core” theory is deprecated. I believe I have a better and more modern way to frame it. I’ll write it up when I have time, but I’m going to leave this here. I know people want to seem perfect online, but it’s BS. I rather show the evolution of my ideas. Cheers, -PS

[DEPRECATED]

I believe that the core of software engineering management is what Andy Grove calls output. As a software engineering manager, your prime directive is to improve and increase your team’s output in ways that really matter for your company’s products and services. That’s the what.

Actually, as a manager, how you predictably and consistently achieve these outcomes is by serving as an “impedance match” from this quantified, economic view of output to the biomorphic reality of the people who do the work. Perhaps managing “AI workers” will be a thing in the next 5-10 years, but for now, humans it is.

If you just focus too much on the output side, it’s like the classic and oft-cited I Love Lucy chocolate conveyor belt episode:

Conversely, if you focus too much on the people topics and lose sight of output and value creation, well, that’s your prerogative, but it’s not for me. IMHO, the key is the great output and ideally, happy and productive people.

Every engineer’s “journey” to create value through their work is, well, different. Even within a single team of 5-15 engineers, two teammates can have vastly different experiences. Consider even a subset of relevant variables:

• What project(s) are you working on?
• Are you working by yourself, or with others? Are the other people on your team, or other teams?
• On a multi-person project, who is doing what?
• How much “potential” does the project have?
• etc…

As a manager for over 5 years (as of late ’24), and a software engineer for many years before that, I’ve seen this play out many different ways.

The best scenario for an engineer is akin to a “virtuous circle” where a combination of the right factors click:

• Motivation is there
• So is the skill, either because it’s pre-existing or being figured out on the fly
• The project itself is “good” in a few ways
• Enough hard work or “elbow grease”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to work smarter, and AI is making that easier than ever, but I haven’t quite seen it click without periods of hard work.

Those factors line up, the engineer ultimately makes an outsized difference on the product, gets rewarded (e.g., promotions, more good projects, etc), and, overall, enjoys the experience, and hopefully learned a new thing or two along the way.

Conversely, I have also seen quite a few instances where the virtuous circle doesn’t click, and there can be many factors involved (usually, more than one):

• Their willingness to do the work
• Their motivation about the work, team, company, etc.
• Communication challenges, inter-personal situations
• Situations outside of work
• Their ability to handle and act on constructive feedback
• Issues with their skill and capability, often compounded by the above

Despite all this variation, output (the team’s output, great output, output that matters) is still the name of the game. As a manager, you need to facilitate, guide, and orchestrate these outcomes despite all the “entropy”.

Furthermore, which attributes of output matter most (customer relevance, product relevance, timeliness, quality, quantity, innovation, opportunity costs, etc) is context-dependent, has no trivial answer, and is worthy of much more analysis.

It’s worth mentioning that, in a world where some people are very “black or white” about things, I’m very much a “shades of gray” person by nature. However, I’ve learned that, as a manager, I must provide clarity in ways that leads to better outcomes for the team. The seemingly reductive focus on “output” is a fundamental part of this clarity, and this is one of Andy Grove’s brilliances, to make it that simple at its heart.

Also, output is the answer, Jeopardy-style, to the most important personal question at work: why you (as manager) and your team are even there in the first place. We are all here to work together and make great things, because merely good doesn’t cut it. That has to be front and center, in good times and bad. Without that context, there is no shared mission or motivation. And without a shared mission or motivation, good luck making those great things come alive.

[DEPRECATED]

Updated 7 Jan 2025. Deprecated 16 April 2025.